Finding Solace

Chapter 5 - Humiliation & Humility

Numb.

From head to toe, body and soul I was numb.

I was not heart-broken.

I was humiliated.

I hadn't known Fayaaz long enough for me to fall deeply and madly in love with him, but that didn't mean that the word divorce would affect my life any less.

Divorce.

The word, the act, it held so much in it's seven letters. It was a huge stigma within the community that in the end, after processing that Fayaaz had left me divorce papers and disappeared into thin air, I didn't tell anyone.

I couldn't tell anyone.

I was too embarrassed.

Not even a year or week of marriage and I was handed divorce papers on a silver platter.

I was sure that if I called someone, anyone, the blame would fall on me as it always did. If people found out about this, I would be known as the girl who couldn't keep her marriage together, the girl who got jilted on her honeymoon. People would talk and talk about the girl, the girl, the girl...

And from there the story would spiral out of control and a thousand different theories would emerge from people who didn't know me from a bar of soap.

So I saved myself the pain and I didn't tell anyone. I didn't call my mother for help, or Daliyah. I stayed cooped up in my room for days, sobbing into my pillow, wondering how my life went from being so put together to being a royal mess.

Each morning I woke up, disorientated, and each morning I checked my phone, hoping, praying for a message from Fayaaz, explaining his disappearance.

And every morning there was no message, no phone call, nothing.

Why did I expect one anyway?

Whatever his reasons were to divorce me, he was not man enough to say it to my face, and thats why he ran.

Why did I expect him to call and inform me of his reckless life decision?

I swallowed the hatred I now had for him, and tried to focus on something else. I had been cooped up in the hotel room for a few days now and everything in it just reminded me of the end of my marriage.

If you could even call it a marriage. It was more like a legal one night stand.

I had shoved the divorce papers into my suitcase, unable to stomach the sight of it. Even though Fayaaz had deserted me on our second night of our honeymoon, he didn't take any of his luggage. He didn't take anything. The only item missing, I discovered, was his passport.

His actions were all mysteries waiting to be unravelled, but I did not have the internal strength to discover why he wanted to ruin my life. I did not have the strength to hound him with messages and questions. I was too busy thinking ahead to how my life was forever ruined, forever flawed, forever doomed.

I tried to come up with rational explanations as to why Fayaaz would want to marry me then divorce me a few days later but with no luck, I would always end up blaming my self.

Was I not intelligent enough for him?

Did he get bored?

Was it the honeymoon?

Was it India?

Would he be that petty to divorce me over a honeymoon destination?

I hadn't even had the time to explain to him why I chose India.